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First, hearty congratulations are in order to the Koch brothers who, according to Forbes, are now worth $25 billion each!

That's up from the pathetic $17 billion each were worth back in 2009. So it looks like this economic downturn...this "Obama recession"...despite all of those "job killing tax increases" (there were none, he's cut taxes repeatedly)...and "job killing regulations" (there were very very few new regulations)...seems to be working out great for the two "job creating" co-owners of Koch Industries, the oil and chemical conglomerate the brothers were fortunate enough to inherit from their father.

But, as Rachel Maddow discussed last week (video posted below), for some odd reason, all that increased personal wealth for the "job creators" at Koch Industries, the country's second largest private company, doesn't seem to have translated into the actual creation of, ya know, jobs for some odd reason...

Weird. Even though their personal wealth has increased by some 40% during the worst economy in nearly a century, even though they now personally are worth more than the GDP of some 48 different countries, they keep killing jobs by firing thousands of Americans.

It's almost as if that whole "job creator" thing --- the notion that people who already have a whole lot of money will simply create more jobs, out of the kindness of their wallets, if only they have still more money --- is a crock of shit that only the dumbest, most brainwashed, misinformed, incurious jackasses could possibly fall for...or something.

Why are the comments closed on the Spakovsky article? Six comments, and it is closed? Well, there is a petition on the White House site banning computers and requiring hand counts in vote tabulation.

A petition against computerized vote counting. You have to get signed into the White House site, before you can sign the petition. Well worth it, and maybe spread it around. You may have to disable your pop-up blocker, but pop-ups are now rare, as so many have blocked them.

Please explain how the Koch Brothers personal wealth increased by 40% during the recession.

I thought the idea of recession causing employees to be laid off was related to businesses doing less well, making less profits, having less to sell and make, so workers get laid off. Is that incorrect? How'd the Koch Brothers get so much richer if their businesses were sucking? Exactly how does that work? Doesn't sound like their businesses were sucking. Or did they make all that money some other way? Hedge funds? Creating the Tea Party? How'd they make all that money and have to lay off so many workers? Your explanation doesn't explain much. But it is typically angry and incoherent. Maybe you're drinking from the wrong punch bowl.

That is an 8 fold increase in employment.
This is a job creating company.
Recession is what drove down the employment

As Mitt Romney said, "Nice try."

Aside from David Lasagna's questions, which I don't expect you'll actually ever answer (or even return here), it's amusing that you claim the Kochs are responsible for "job creating", but not responsible for "job killing", as you see it. That was the fault of the "recession".

The fact is, the Kochs "created" no jobs. The economy did, as fueled by demand. You know, people spending money and stuff. When they have money, they spend it. And so, with demand up, the Kochs have to hire more people --- thanks to the people with money buying their products. Those people, the consumers, are the actual job creators.

When those people don't have money (because, ya know, they've been fired by people like the Kochs), they don't buy stuff and jobs get killed.

If the Kochs are "job creators", and they've amassed enormous wealth over the past 3 years, when they've been given all kinds of tax breaks and government subsidies and have been able to line their own pockets, why aren't they "job creating" anymore?

The answer, of course, lies in the fact that you are clueless about how the economy works, because you're busy drinking Fox "News" kool-aid, rather than reading your 5th grade economic lessons on Supply and Demand. If you go back to those text books, you'll find nothing about the phony, Republican-fantasy concept of "job creators".

You will, however, learn that they've played you for a chump. Either that, or they've paid you to play one here.

Companies exist to create products that meet consumer needs and through that gain profits. If to do that they need more employees, they hire them, if not they lay them off. They at all times must remain competitive.

Companies are NOT a socialist entity to create jobs.
It is none of you business as to how much money a company makes. And just because its profits increase, it has NO obligation to hire people.

If you think companies are making sooo much money start one.

And by the way, most progressives contribute almost nothing to economic growth. It is the top 20% of americans (usually business owners) that are responsible for 80% of consumption - in other words, 80% of the economic growth and job creation.

Progressives like you are in the bottom 80% which contribute only 20% of the growth, but suck up all the government resources and create NO jobs.

You create no jobs.
So look in the mirror as you point your ignorant fingers at others - the problem is you.
Don't like it, you start a company, investing and risking your money, and then when you have any profit be sure to hire someone, whether you need them or not, such that you never have a personal profit. That will satisfy your personal progressive agenda.
Tho only problem is that progressives business owners go out of business, since they DO NOT understand business

Smartly done, Dionyz. You've just proved the very argument of my article. You're clearly not a troll working for the Kochs, you're just one of the misinformed chumps, brainwashed enough with illogical misinformation that you're happy to play their patsy and do their dirty work for them.

You may wish to go back and read the original article that you think you are responding to, because you've just made my point for me! You are correct! Specifically, when you wrote: "Companies exist to create products that meet consumer needs and through that gain profits."

That, of course, is the entire point. The Kochs and friends are not "job creators", they are "profit creators" and have a fiduciary duty to make (and increase) profits at all costs, even if it means "job killing". That, of course, is exactly what the Kochs did, and the point of the article. They are not "job creators". Neither are any of the other wealthy folks out there who the GOP argues need still more money and, if they had it, they would "create jobs, "out of the kindness of their wallets", as I wrote.

As to your nonsense about progressives "in the bottom 80%..." blah, blah, blah. I think you confuse "progressives", with those people that Fox "News" doesn't want you to like. If you take a look at the Forbes 400 list --- the starting point for this article --- you'll see the Koch's tied for 4th place on that list of the richest Americans. Above them, at 1, 2 & 3, you'll find the Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Larry Ellison respectively. With Gates and Ellison progressives with progressives corporations, and Buffet, who has called for higher taxes on the wealthy, such that Obama has referred to his proposal to do so as the "Buffet Rule", where rich folks shouldn't pay a smaller percentage of their income than folks at the bottom of the class system do (as is frequently the case now.)

Again, you have no clue what progressivism actually means, any more than you had a clue what you were quarrelling with me about in the first place when you responded to this article originally.

Glad you now agree with me on my original point in the original article. And, after you educate yourself about who and what define progressivism, you'll find out how clueless you currently are on that score as well.

Look in the mirror. Ignorance will slap you in the face.
The brainwashing was done on you by the ignorant public school teachers.
People like you are the exact reason why we need to get rid of public schools and the union teachers that can't be fired even if they are lying to our children.
Everyone should have to pay for what they use.
If you can't afford to put your children in private school then you should not have children.
Please stop being a leech and stop breeding.

Now back on the point, Koch grew its payrolls from less than 10,000 to over 80,000. Only an idiot would not agree that this was 70,000 increase in employment. Yes, they reduced their payroll from that level by 20,000, however, this is ALL due to the retarded policies of the progressives interfering in the free market.
And don't go bad mouthing the free market in your progressive ignorance, because the free market is all the consumers of the USA, including the ignorant progressives.
And you are demonstrating another typical progressive strategy - don't confuse me with the facts.
Facts are:
top 20% of Americans are responsible for 80% of the economy, so they are the ones that mater.
Bottom 50% pay no federal income tax, so they leech off the system.
Since we have a deficit, we can raise taxes on this 50% without hurting the economy to the point that this 50% pays 50% of the taxes - that is only fair.
And ve can reduce taxes on the top 20% so they pay 20% of the taxes - that is fair.
So let's do what is fair - I mean progressives are all about fairness - so go ask your treasonous progressive Obummer president to apply some fairness and raise taxes on the bottom 50% and reduce taxes on the top 20% so that we can be FAIR and star creating jobs.

How many jobs did your beloved progressive millionaires create:
1 - Obummer create on his way to becoming a millionaire? None
How many jobs destroyed - millions
2 Al Gore along the way to amassing his millions through global warming lies? None
2 - George Soros - how many on his way towards his billions? I bet less than a thousand. How many jobs destroyed when he bet against the British pound? hundreds of thousands.

So until you back up you progressive nonsense jabber with facts, please just be quiet with your nonsense.

All of the three progressives I mentioned above are massive job destroyers and VERY evil men.

Dionyz: As someone with both graduate and undergraduate degrees in political science as well as a juris doctor (4th in class of 277), I can't tell you how amusing it is to see someone like yourself, who is barely literate, prefacing every remark with "ignorant left wing nut job posting," continuing progressive blather," etc.

I see that you are fond of throwing out typical right-wing talking points, but that each of your posts is devoid of any links.

For example, in comment #13 you say that the bottom 50% of Americans do not pay income tax. Link?

While we're on the subject of your heroes, Charles and David Koch, you might want to take a look at what their brother Bill had to say during a Nov. 27, 2000 episode of 60 Minutes, "Blood and Oil:

It was...my family company. I was out of it, but that’s what appalled me so much... I did not want my family, my legacy, my father’s legacy to be based upon organized crime.

Bill Koch alleged that Charles "made millions by stealing oil from the government;" that Koch Industries falsified measurements of the amount of oil Koch was actually acquiring on its run sheets. While Koch Industries dismissed Bill as a disgruntled former executive, Bill's account was supported by the testimony of some 50 former Koch employees in a federal lawsuit.

Okay, I've been part of a number of efforts here to try to engage people of very different worldviews. But this latest shit is just too crazy for me. I see no crossover into anything I'd call reality. It'd be like trying to convince a rabid, starving pitbull to wear a napkin and chew thoroughly. Agreement on common ground or facts seems most unlikely.

I mean for all we know this is just some spoiled, unhappy 13 year old at a prep school getting extra credit for a course on--How To Avoid What's Really Pissing You Off(and get your rocks off, too)With Political Masturbation On The Internet.

Kids like him/her were a dime a dozen at the very exclusive prep school I attended. They breed like rabbits, live off their trust funds, and usually aren't very good at ice skating.

There was this one kid--Jorval Hyacinth--who actually used a blow torch to write his bluebook in philosophy with. Then got really mad when the teacher flunked him and made him take shop for three straight semesters to help replace all the desks that got burned up.

No, really. Take me seriously. I'll write anything.

I'm trying to patent this new hermaphroditic drug so I can just fuck myself and populate the world with millions of little hermaphroditic me's. Cuz everyone else is too ignorant and mirror slapping happy.

No, I'm serious and expect to be taken seriously.

Did you know that the painter Miro was the last person to vote in the 2000 election? Yeah, Ralph Nader put him up to it so they could make commemorative plates and sell them on ebay. Apparently they made a butt load.

Okay. Having failed the first two times, you've come back to step on another rake. Happy to help.

To respond to your queries 1,2,3...

How many jobs did your beloved progressive millionaires create:
1 - Obummer create on his way to becoming a millionaire? None
How many jobs destroyed - millions

Here is the monthly job losses/gains of both public and private sector jobs under Bush (red) from Dec. 2007 through Obama (blue) Aug 2011, based on numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as posted in chart form on the first Friday of every month by Washington Monthly's Steve Benen:

"Jobs destroyed"? Really?

Now, to help you out a bit further, you'll notice after 16 months of staunching the bleeding of jobs lost initially under Bush after Obama came to office, that suddently things drop off again for a bit even after new jobs were again beginning to be created. That drop off was the point at which state and local governments started laying off public workers, because --- among other reasons --- Republicans had filibustered money that would have gone to state and local government to keep them from having to lay off public workers (police, fire, teachers, etc.)

Here's the same chart as above, but showing only private job loss/gains per month. Red is private sector jobs per month under Bush. Purple is private sector jobs per month under Obama before the stimulus act. Blue is private sector jobs per month under Obama after stimulus:

So, um, what were you saying again, Dionyz??

2 Al Gore along the way to amassing his millions through global warming lies? None

Well, for a start, Al Gore doesn't have anything to do with government jobs policy. Nor does he own any energy companies to my knowledge (though he is an investor). He is an owner of Current TV, which has certainly created jobs.

But when Al Gore did have something to do with government jobs policy, as Vice President in the Clinton/Gore administration, according to Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal, he presided over the creation of 23.1 million jobs in 8 years (avg 2.9 million/month). A record. Over 20 million of them were in the private sector. Compare that to George W. Bush's 3 million jobs (avg. 375,000/month). Also a record! The worst record of any modern day President!

2 - George Soros - how many on his way towards his billions? I bet less than a thousand. How many jobs destroyed when he bet against the British pound? hundreds of thousands.

You should have numbered that "3", but clearly you've got a problem with numbers. As to how many jobs you "bet" he gain, I couldn't care less. Got figures to support your claims? Because, so far, you've been wrong on absolutely everything else you've tried to post here. If so, please share them. I'm done being your Google. But I'll bet you one dollar for every job over a thousand he "created". Wanna take the bet?

(And to David Lasagna - I don't do this to convince the disinformed patsies like Dionyz. I do it to help educate all the other folks reading along who may be similarly misinformed, but not so stupid as to go on record in comments as if they know for certain...only to step on the same rakes our duped friend Dionyz keeps stepping on.)

I would like to believe that Dionyz at #13 is a troll, but it's hard to conceive of a troll being so clever as to generate such trenchantly delusional chatter.

>Everyone should have to pay for what they use.

Great, then those individuals who benefit the most from a stable government and bloated military should pay the most, correct? (Bear in mind that when a military does fail, or when a revolution overthrows a government, it is not the farmers and factory workers who wind up on the guillotine.)

>If you can't afford to put your children in >private school then you should not have children.
>Please stop being a leech and stop breeding.

Yes, because money is the one Socratic "good" by which all human endeavor can be compared. When you are faced with two mutually exclusive options, the one which earns you the most money is undoubtedly the correct moral path. Because everybody has the same opportunities and the same resources, and because there has never been any institution in American or world history which selectively disadvantaged certain groups of people, any poverty is clearly self-inflicted and deserved. Thus anybody with money is a human being and of fine breeding stock, and anybody without is a leech who should undergo voluntary sterilization. (Perhaps we could give them new radios as compensation.)

>Yes, they reduced their payroll from that level >by 20,000, however, this is ALL due to the >retarded policies of the progressives >interfering in the free market.

Which progressive policies, exactly, allowed the Koch brothers to pocket eight-billion dollars each but pressured them to cut 13,000 jobs?

>And don't go bad mouthing the free market in >your progressive ignorance, because the free >market is all the consumers of the USA, >including the ignorant progressives.

Sure, and a truly unrestricted free market endorses slavery. But, of course, because of progressive regulations, American companies have to go outside the U.S. to find their slaves.

>don't confuse me with the facts.

Trust me, we weren't about to.

>Facts are:
>top 20% of Americans are responsible for 80% of >the economy, so they are the ones that mater.

Yes, the god Economy favors those who worship him fervently. All others must be sacrificed. (If you're missing the point, Dio, it's that you are a member of a sick cult which equates net worth with personal value.)

>Since we have a deficit, we can raise taxes on >this 50% without hurting the economy to the >point that this 50% pays 50% of the taxes - that >is only fair.

Your suggestion, then, is to raise taxes on the elderly, the impoverished, and the actual job creators (i.e., the small businesses)? Congratulations, you've reinvented feudalism. And you honestly believe that taking money out of the hands of the consumers who have the least discretionary income won't hurt the economy? And even as people in the middle become poorer and their economic influence shrinks, their tax burden will remain the same. Genius stuff, Dio.

>And ve can reduce taxes on the top 20% so they >pay 20% of the taxes - that is fair.

If the top 20% generate 80% of the economy, why shouldn't they pay 80% of the taxes? See, what you envision is a system which prioritizes the accumulation of wealth and the stagnation of monetary flow. It increases the advantages of the advantaged and deepens the poverty of the impoverished, based largely on the absurd presumption that both have earned their positions and therefore deserve to retain them indefinitely.

What about your perverse wet dream of a scheme will create jobs, exactly? And, out of curiosity, how did you earn your wealth?

Sorry about the excess of "greater than"s in that post; it's been awhile since I've really gone to town quoting in the Brad Comments. Although, given the subject matter, a large number of "greater than"s seem to suit Dionyz quite well.

Thanks for the nod and I'm completely with you on that. I think one of the reasons we've slipped into this particularly nonsense-heavy time is that so much nonsense has gone unrebutted for so long. That's just one reason it's important to counter cuckooness with truth and reality every single time we can. Always love the deconstructions here. You're very good at them. Jon has a beautiful one here. I feel that I can do them fairly well if I try but I think I may not be so naturally adept at them as you and some others here. And when I get flummoxed by ignorance on parade, humor as weapon is not infrequently my fallback position. That can be fun but I'd have to say there is also an element in there for me where I may jacking off in my own way as much as the people I'm complaining about. Bridges and compassion are much more challenging and nuanced responses to offer, in my view. I sometimes just don't know how to respond from a higher consciousness when the recurring insults are wedded to hyperbolic incoherency.

There's another way, Jon in Iowa, to look at Dionyz's the "top 20% of Americans are responsible for 80% of the economy," though it would have been more ideal if he/she had focused on the top 1%.

The economy is in shambles. Those responsible for the sorry state of the U.S. (and world) economy are those at the pinnacle of the economic ladder --- (1) the economic and political elites responsible for the outsourcing of the U.S. manufacturing base in search of Asian sweatshops where jobs that once paid decent union wages are filled by children working for $2/day; (2) the elites at the pinnacle of the military-industrial complex who have benefited from trillions of tax dollars that have fallen into the economic black hole known as the Pentagon budget, while those elites have played the fear card in order to convince the American public to applaud their own mugging; (2) the Banksters and Wall Street CEOs who eliminated legal safeguards like Glass-Steagall --- and other pesky government regulations --- so that they could dig a $63 trillion black hole known as the credit default swaps market, only to turn to the federal government to bail them out when their fraudulent scheme unraveled; (4) Billionaires like the Koch brothers whose fortunes permit them to invest in (corrupt) politicians in order to evade their fair share of tax responsibility, to evade laws designed to protect public health, safety and the environment, and evade legal liability when they poison that environment and the ordinary folks whose lives they deem expendable. See, Capitalism Will Make You Sick.

There's a line in the song, "If I were a Rich Man," from the musical Fiddler on the Roof which aptly describes how individuals like Dionyz think:

While it is exceedingly useful to publish graphs which provide a basis for comparison of the loss of private sector employment under GOP administrations vs. gains under Democratic administrations, I think one has to be careful to evade the trap of the right-wing canard that private sector employment is the only appropriate measure of successful economic policy.

Contrary to hard-right propaganda, growth of public sector employment is a plus, especially since, unlike private sector employment that entails the largest share of profits in the hands of the investor class, public sector jobs for the accomplishment of the public good are, economically, the most efficient.

The ideal example of this can be found in healthcare. Where administrative costs for Medicare are about 2% of the healthcare dollar, private healthcare insurance companies capture 31% of the healthcare dollar, much of which goes to healthcare insurer CEOs and investors.

I think one has to be careful to evade the trap of the right-wing canard that private sector employment is the only appropriate measure of successful economic policy.

Of course, I concur. But was just trying to make clear in my response to Dionyz the reason for the drop off from what had been an unbroken upward trend in the Job Loss/Gain chart under Obama. It happened when the stimulus money ran out (even as the GOP tax breaks continued) and local/state governments were forced to lay folks off, making the economic crisis even worse, naturally.

Guess Dionyz has thrown in the towel he/she should have thrown in in the first place. Demonstrable facts are a bitch, eh? Better go back to Fox and get more horseshit for blog comment purposes, Dionyz! We love it here!

David @ #21, totally understand where you're coming from. The deep desire to continue believing in GOP myths, even when those myths are actively destroying the economic best interests of the rightwingers who subscribe to them, even in the face of empirical reality, even in the face of rock-hard evidence linked and proven, is truly mind-boggling at times.

"The desire to disbelieve deepens as the scale of the threat grows," concludes economist-ethicist Clive Hamilton.

Sound reasoning and sourced data will likely not break through the hermetically-sealed brain of a dedicated tribal rightwinger, but it will be seen and read and considered by others whose minds are not impervious to facts, who genuinely seek clarity in the middle of our political civil war, both now and many years down the line. Take a sanity break often, and remember it's for those people that we keep trying!